Landing in the water hazard

My house isn’t much, just a little brick ranch, but I like it. The neighborhood is in slow decline, but it’s quiet. And all five times I’ve accidentally left my garage door up all day while I was at work, nobody robbed me blind.

My house backs up to a golf course. Lest you think I live in a hoity-toity golf community, know that the neighborhood came first by 25 years. And I don’t golf.

That’s not a water hazard in the photo, or at least not one the golf course planned. It’s what happens every time it rains. Water pools everywhere. My next-door neighbors, who’ve lived there for going on 30 years, tell me it was a lot worse before the golf course was built. It was a farm field then, and when it rained water ran into all of our back yards. I’m sure it filled my crawl space with water. But my neighbors’ house is on a concrete slab, and so the water just ran under their back door and into their kitchen. They love the golf course, not so much for the constant barrage of golf balls that land in their back yard, but for the way it leveled out the land. It really drains so much more effectively now.

That is, except when it really rains – and the 14th fairway becomes a river.

This happens a couple times every spring. Every time it does, my sump pump runs all night, making me wish it weren’t under my bedroom. Ah, homeownership.